Miquon School has a 10-acre partially wooded campus cut by a creek. Charles and Chariss, along with team members, provided an analysis of water flows and suggestions for managing stormwater.

Charles Loomis and Chariss McAfee, principals of Charles Loomis Chariss McAfee Architecture and 2009 recipients of a Collaborative Outstanding Firm Award, look forward to new design challenges.

Charles and Chariss have worked on two projects with the Collaborative, a master plan for the renovation of Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania and a conceptual design for creek stabilization for the Miquon School in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.  Volunteering with the Collaborative allows them to take on a wider range of projects.  “We are attracted by the complexities of the issues and to working with diverse groups of people,” remarks Charles.

They see providing their architecture skills pro bono as a way to support community organizations. “It is helpful to nonprofit groups to have this assistance in the early difficult-to-fund stages of their projects,” says Chariss.

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The Community Design Collaborative has honored Wallace Roberts & Todd  with its inaugural Gold Medal Firm Award in recognition of the firm’s extraordinary dedication and service . “WRT has been a rock of support,” says Beth Miller, Executive Director of the Collaborative,  “Since our beginnings in 1991, WRT volunteers have provided more than $200,000 worth of pro bono services. This firm has a great ethic of community service. More than 60 WRT staff members have shown their enthusiasm for our mission by volunteering.”

WRT Principal and Collaborative Board Member Mami Hara on a site visit for Infill Philadelphia: Food Access

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Our volunteer recognition event during DesignPhiladelphia was a huge success!  Over 120 people attended and the presentation was standing room only.

The talk by Terry Schwarz raised interesting issues about vacant land and temporary reuse.  Her work with Pop Up City in Cleveland provides some creative ideas for revitalizing urban areas, fostering community engagement and utilizing neglected infrastructure.  Schwarz discussed past Pop Up events including a winter festival called Leap Night, a community celebration on a neglected bridge and an artists’ bazaar in an empty building.

The Collaborative will continue working on these issues with our Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites Interim Use Charrette on October 30.  Design professionals, public artists, and nonprofit and city planners will devise creative temporary projects to enliven vacant small-scale  neighborhood industrial sites in Chinatown and Kensington.

Erin and Richard Roark, the recipients of this year’s Community Design Award for their outstanding work on the master plan for revitalization of Palumbo Park, make a pretty exceptional team.

Richard Roark RLA, ASLA, LEED AP, and Erin K.M. Roark, RA, LEED AP, recipients of the 2009 Community Design Award

Erin and Richard have volunteered their skills to help Collaborative clients for years. Most recently, they formed a two-person team and worked with the Palumbo Park Task Force and the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial to create  a conceptual landscape plan for Palumbo Park.

Before the couple decided to take on this project together, the Roarks never had a chance to work together as a husband-wife team on a project outside their home. In their own words, “This was a big step up from renovating the bathroom and designing Christmas cards.” Read Full Story

A front porch for Palumbo Park? The conceptual landscape master plan for Palumbo Park is our 2009 Community Design Award recipient.

Join the Community Design Collaborative on Tuesday, October 13 at 6 p.m. at the Center for Architecture to celebrate the work of the volunteers who contributed their time and expertise on projects initiated in 2008  and recognize some of our outstanding volunteers, leaders, and projects.  Stay with us for the rest of the evening as the Collaborative presents Ad Hoc Urbanism: Adventures in Temporary Reuse, a talk by Terry Schwarz of the Cleveland Urban Design Center on Pop Up City.

The Collaborative is proud to announce its 2009 award recipients:

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Who could have predicted that in the midst of a recession year, the Collaborative would be recognized at more nonprofit ground-breaking ceremonies than ever before?

Celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of our volunteers, nonprofits and civic associations who have dedicated their time to strengthening neighborhoods through design:

You understand the value of the Community Design Collaborative’s work in Philadelphia neighborhoods.  Here’s a simple way you can impact both. Make a donation before October 13th and you will help save paper and postage!

The Collaborative thanks you!

Community Design Collaborative Board Co-Chair Michael J. Paul

You really just can’t say enough good things about Michael J. Paul. A structural engineer, Michael has volunteered his engineering skills with the Community Design Collaborative for over 15 years, contributing to more than 20 different community design projects in the Philadelphia area. After studying Psychology as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, Michael received a Master of Science in Civil Engineering and a Master of Architecture from MIT; he is a registered architect as well as a professional engineer.
Here at the Community Design Collaborative, Michael is one of our renaissance men. Read Full Story